Victory or Sovngarde

Chapter Thirty-Two

Later that night, I awoke to my wife's weight settling closer to me in bed. I would have found great comfort in that, if she had not been thrashing and groaning in her sleep.

Sitting up, I grabbed her shoulder and shook her, trying to wake her from her nightmares. She just kept kicking and grunting, the occasional, "Stop it," or "No, please," slipping from between her lips.

"Ylva!" I cried as I tried to rouse her. "Wake up, sweetie! It's a bad dream!"

With a roar, Ylva pushed off the bed and planted her knee into my chest. Her hands flew to my throat, squeezing with desperate strength. Her wild curls created an ebony shadow around her pale face, her eyes burned with ferocity, and her lips bent into a deep snarl. In the faint candlelight across the room, her white lock of hair created a ghastly shape in the rest of her tresses.

I latched around her wrists and pulled them off me. She was still half-asleep and delirious, so overtaking her was no problem. "Ylva, it was a dream," I said as I eased her knee off my sternum. "Just a dream."

Slowly, the wild look drained from her face as her coherence returned to her. Her hands fell limp in mine, and with a shocked expression, she reeled back. She tried to scurry away from me, but the bed was only so big, and, after becoming entangled in the covers, she fell to the floor.

"Are you all right, love?" I asked her as I jumped off the bed to help her get free of her woolen confines. "It's okay. You're okay."

"I hurt you, didn't I?" she asked me as I pulled the blankets away from her legs. "I started choking you."

"You weren't really hurting me." I cupped my hand to her face, thumb tracing over the too-sharp angle of her cheekbone. "Even if you did hurt me, you didn't mean it. It's okay, love. You're safe now, underneath Jorrvaskr."

"I don't feel safe. It's only a matter of time before the Dominion comes here with their war machines and bloodlust."

"They would be foolish to come here, Ylva."

"This city isn't designed to handle a massive attack, Vilkas. The Thalmor will come for us." She closed her eyes and, with some hesitation, leaned into me. I enveloped her and rested my chin on her head. Her lithe fingers grazed my bare chest, her warm breath spreading across my skin as she tried to calm herself down. "Elenwen... while I was there, she was growing desperate. Frustrated. I refused to give her what she wanted, and it was angering her. She's not thinking clearly anymore."

"Ylva, I hate to ask... but did you give anything up?"

She tensed, then shook her head. "No, Vilkas. I... I didn't. By the strength of the gods, I held my tongue."

I held her even closer to myself. "That's my girl. I knew you could do it."

"Please, don't talk about this. I need to meet with Ulfric and Marina in the morning, and they're going to ask me about this. I... I can't talk about it now."

I frowned. "What, they'll know more about it before I know? I'm your husband. You can tell me anything."

"You don't want to know what I've been through, Vilkas. This horror... it goes beyond your worst nightmares." She shook her head once more. "Don't ask me about this."

"I won't ask, but if you're afraid to tell me now, you won't be ready to speak with them in the morning. If you want them to know you're alive, I can send for them, and they can come here, but you shouldn't speak about the war until you're ready to face what happened to you. Does that sound fair?"

Met with silence, I wondered if she was going to defy me, as she normally would. Try to convince me that I was wrong, that she could handle this. But she surprised me when she murmured, "Okay."